WASHINGTON, US - FLORIDA will not redo its voided presidential nominating primary Democratic party officials said on Monday, as the agonisingly close campaign contest between bitter rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton plays on.

'We researched every potential alternative process - from caucuses to county conventions to mail-in elections - but no plan could come anywhere close to being viable in Florida,' Congresswoman Karen Thurman, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, said in a memo to voters.

'We made a detailed case to the DNC (Democratic National Committee) Rules and Bylaws Committee, but we were denied,' she said.

Last week, amid mounting pressure to resolve one of the 2008 presidential campaign's most divisive disputes, party officials in Florida had proposed a repeat presidential primary on June 3 that would combine mail-in ballots with in-person voting.

But Ms Thurman said the party was swamped with thousands of responses from voters opposed to a re-vote, and that the speaker of the Florida House, Republican Marco Rubio, 'refuses to even consider' holding another election.

'The consensus is clear: Florida doesn't want to vote again,' Ms Thurman said.

'So we won't.' National party leaders stripped Florida and Michigan of delegates to the Democratic National Convention because the two states violated party rules by moving the dates of their presidential primaries forward to January.

The primaries were held all the same, even though Democratic presidential hopefuls largely respected pledges not to campaign in the two states.

Michigan
Meanwhile, in Michigan, Senator Obama had his name removed from the ballot and Mrs Clinton won decisive victories in both states, amid record voter turnout.

Florida's Republican Governor Charlie Crist made it clear he wanted to see Florida's January vote accepted by the Democrats.

'The common sense thing would be to seat the delegates who were selected,' Mr Crist said on Fox News television late Monday.

'It was a tremendous turnout both on the Republican and Democratic side, so to me, the obvious common sense thing to do, is to seat the delegates and move forward.' -- AFP